by Francis King
Both of them are pillars of our church, Ivor as a churchwarden and Claudine as an arranger of everything from flowers for the altar to an expedition for the old people to see Danny La Rue in pantomime in Brighton. Recently, they exerted themselves to raise money for a Croatian village, with an outcome which caused indignation to them and amusement to us and our friends.
Three or four years ago, they were motoring up from Athens through what was then Yugoslavia when, in a remote mountain village, their car broke down. Since there were no spare parts and no professional mechanic, they were stuck there; and since there was no hotel or even inn, they had to rely on a village family to put them up. They returned home full of praise for the kindness lavished on them. ‘They boiled innumerable pots of water so that I could have a bath,’ Claudine said of their hosts, and Ivor then described how, for want of a suitable electric plug anywhere else, he had been allowed to shave in the police station.
Subsequently, they were horrified to read in the Telegraph that this same village had been virtually destroyed by Serbian guerillas. At once they set about raising money. Inevitably, since they are extremely energetic and extremely strong-willed, they soon enlisted the help not merely of Noreen and me but of everyone who attends our church and many people who don’t. There was a bring-and-buy sale, a number of raffles, a concert. Eventually, they had raised a sum of over two thousand pounds.
The money having been despatched, they were eager to see how it had been spent. Everyone warned them of the danger but, undaunted, they set off. Having eventually arrived in the ravaged village, they were enthusiastically greeted by all its notables. Everyone was grateful to them, they would always be remembered as benefactors, they were constantly told. To what purpose, they at length asked, had the money been put? (Their assumption had always been that it would have been used to rebuild houses, to repair the extensively damaged church, or to evacuate children to a place of greater safety.) The head man of the village beamed. He would show them, he said.
They were taken out on to the steps of the wooden village hall. Then a vehicle slowly passed before them. It was a magnificent horse-drawn hearse, its mahogany and brasswork gleaming. That was what their efforts had bought for the little village, they were told. Now everyone, however poor, could have a slap-up funeral.
When they returned home, Ivor and Claudine were full of indignation – ‘Can you imagine the waste, the stupidity?’ one or other of them kept protesting. But Noreen told them, bluntly, not to be so silly – ‘ If you give people money, then you must allow them to spend it as they want.’ They were not convinced.
Now we are both wondering if their visit has anything to do with this (for them) fiasco.
‘What would you like to drink?’ I have again forgotten that both of them not merely do not drink but disapprove of others doing so. Quickly I add: ‘There’s coffee or tea if you like. Or would you rather have some juice?’
Juice will be fine,’ Ivor says.
‘Anything not to give you any trouble,’ Claudine adds. Like many people who constantly give one trouble, she often says that.
When we have our glasses of apple juice, Ivor says: ‘Well, I think I’d better get to the point.’ Then he turns to Claudine: ‘Unless you’d like to tell them.’
‘No, you go ahead, dear.’
Ivor, who is the boss of our local building firm, is said to have started life as an ordinary labourer. Before she married him, Claudine worked for many years in the local hairdresser’s. They are, as Noreen often reminds me, good people; but like many good people, they can be extremely tiresome.
Ivor begins to explain: ‘It’ s really about the vicar. One doesn’t wish to pay attention to scandal – does one? – but at the same time, if the church is going to suffer …’
‘Are you talking about Mrs Wandley?’ Noreen interrupts, with her usual bluntness.
‘Well, er, yes. I’m sure you know what people are saying.’
‘I don’t believe a word of it. James is just being kind to her, that’s all. He’s sorry for her.’ Only last year Eric Wandley died of cancer, leaving his wife with three teenage children and virtually no money.
‘I only hope you’re right.’ Claudine sips demurely from her glass. ‘But he does seem to spend an awful lot of time over at Wren Cottage.’
I put in: ‘Iris Wandley is emphatically not the sort of woman with whom a man has an affair.’ Both of them look at me. I know that, for some unfathomable reason, I have shocked them. I want to go on: She’s dowdy, she’s middle-aged, she has legs like tree trunks, and her nose is always red. But somehow I think that it would be better not to do so.
Ivor shifts uneasily in his chair and gives a small, lady-like cough. He is a big man; but his tweed suit, in a boldly patterned check, light blue on grey, and his brogue shoes both seem too large for him. ‘You’re a man of the world, Maurice,’ he says. ‘We’re all old enough to know the score in such matters. You must admit it’s odd that Jack should visit her every day and that he should often visit her for an hour or even more than an hour at a time.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Noreen demands.
‘Well, Mrs Shipman …’ Mrs Shipman cleans for Ivor and Claudine. ‘She lives next door to Mrs Wandley. She can’t help seeing what goes on.’
‘Just a lot of idle chatter,’ Noreen says briskly.
‘Well, one would certainly like to think that,’ Claudine says. ‘ I just hope that you’re right. As a matter of fact, Mrs Shipman isn’t one for idle chatter,’ she continues. ‘Quite the reverse.’
‘Anyway, there’s nothing we can do about it,’ I say.
Ivor leans forward, his chair creaking under his weight. ‘That’s the point. That’s why I – we – wanted a word.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Jack respects you,’ he says. ‘And likes you. As you know, he and I had that little argy-bargy and things have never really been quite the same between us since.’ The ‘little argy-bargy’ took place when the vicar, desperate to raise money for repairs to the roof of the church, announced that he was proposing to sell a seventeenth-century Dutch silver communion plate by Sigismund Zachammer, the bequest of a recently dead parishioner, and asked me whether I would handle the sale. Ivor, who had known the parishioner in question, had successfully opposed the plan. ‘If you were to have a friendly word …’
I shake my head vigorously. ‘Out of the question.’
‘I don’t mean that you should accuse him … You’re a tactful man, Maurice. You could say that you’ve heard this gossip which you know is only gossip … But that you’re worried about Mrs Wandley’s reputation and his reputation …’
‘And worried for the church,’ Claudine puts in.
‘He’ll take the hint,’ Ivor says. ‘ From you he’ll take it. As I say, he respects you.’
‘As we all do,’ Claudine says. ‘Even if there’s nothing in it, he’ll be rather more careful about how often he makes his visits and for how long.’
‘Sorry. it’s not on. If you really think that something should be said to him, then you must say it, Ivor. Or you, Claudine.’
Used to getting their own way in the village, they are both clearly miffed.
‘Sometimes I just don’t understand you,’ Ivor says.
‘You’re the one to do it,’ Claudine persists.
When at last, after a lot of argument, they have gone, Noreen turns to me: ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ She gives her clear, high laugh, the laugh of a young girl.
I say nothing, as I begin to lock and bolt the front door before we go to bed.
‘What hypocrisy!’ Noreen says.
Still I say nothing. I am thinking of that typescript of Bob’s autobiography, a vial of poison on the point of exploding from the pressure building up within it, in the desk drawer behind us. I am thinking of it and the years in the Black Box.
What right have I to preach morality to anyone?
‘They’ve upset you,’ Noreen tells me, putting
an arm round my shoulders. ‘Why don’t you have a night-cap before you turn in?’
‘Let’s both have a night-cap.’
‘Oh, all right!’ She giggles. ‘How shocked Ivor and Claudine would be if they knew we were up to anything so wicked!’
Chapter Seventeen
After Mrs Pavlovsky had given me a key, I could go in and out of her house without ringing the bell. But for once I had forgotten it.
‘Oh, it’s you, Mervyn! Oh, I am glad! I thought of ringing you or your mama.’ Although it was past ten o’clock, she was in dressing-gown and slippers trodden down at the heels, with her scant, grey hair screwed up in curlers. ‘I’m sorry to be like this. But I’m getting ready for a wedding. My sister’s second daughter. Come in, come in! Yes, I really am glad to see you, I really am.’
‘Is something the matter?’ Through the open door of the one room of the house which she occupied, I could hear a bath running. I had never before realised that she had a bathroom of her own.
‘Just a mo.’ She disappeared to turn off the water. ‘That geyser’s playing up,’ she announced on her return. ‘I had the gas-man in only last week. He told me I needed a new one, that this one was dangerous. But how am I to afford a new geyser?’ She put a hand on my arm. Even then, at only seventeen, I could feel the pathos of that hand – the nails chipped and broken, the skin engrained with dirt – which constantly cleaned other people’s houses when it was not cleaning her own. ‘He’s bad,’ she said. ‘Your father’s really bad.’
‘Ill?’
‘Not physically.’ She removed the hand and tapped her forehead. ‘Here. I’m afraid he’s got worse.’
‘I’d better go and see.’
As I began to mount the bare, creaking treads of the stairs, she said: ‘I hope I’m not to blame. That’s what worries me. I asked him for the rent last Sunday and then again yesterday. Perhaps that got him down. But, as I told you, I need that money. I had to buy a present – a wedding present – for my niece. And I have to help my son and his wife …’
I’m sure his condition has nothing to do with you. He’s suffered from this neurasthenia ever since the War.’ I seemed to hear Ma saying the word in answer to my question about what was wrong with Dad, so many years before, when we were returning home from Victoria Station in a taxi after seeing him off to Italy.
‘I’d hate to be the cause of a relapse for him.’
‘Don’t worry about it!’
His door was ajar. He was sitting in the one armchair by the window, in nothing but a cotton vest and pants and a pair of socks, rucked about his ankles. His hair was tousled and there was a blueish-grey growth of hair on his chin and upper lip.
‘Dad!’
His adam’s apple bobbed up and down but no sound emerged. He stared at me with eyes so red that I wondered if he had been crying. I had often seen him cry before, on and on, as though from some inconsolable grief. I hated it when he did it. I hoped that he was not going to cry before me now.
‘What’s the problem?’
I saw the tray on the table beside him. There were some uneaten fingers of toast, congealed in their butter, a teacup full of tea, an apple. Although the rent was unpaid, good, kind Mrs Pavlovsky had clearly been attempting to feed him.
I pointed: ‘Why haven’t you had any of this?’
He shook his head. ‘Can’t.’ The sound was so weak that I hardly heard it.
‘But you must eat something. And drink something. You can’t just starve yourself.’
I crossed over to him, bent down, put an arm round his shoulders. ‘Dear Dad! Please! Try to eat something!’
He stared fixedly out of the window, his left leg twitching up and down. He might never have heard me. I felt bewildered, frightened, exasperated. He had often been monosyllabic during his depressions, but he had never before failed to make any response whatever to me. What on earth was going on? It was only years later, during my imprisonment in the Black Box, that I came to know the answer to that question.
I drew up the other, straight-backed chair and, knee to knee with him, took both his hands in mine. I experienced an extraordinary yearning tenderness, as of a mother for a stricken child. I massaged his hands.
Then, as though the massage had brought life back not merely into the hands but into his heart and his brain, he said: ‘Your mother. Tell your mother I want to see her. Must see her. Tell her. Just for a few minutes.’
‘Of course I’ll tell her. I’m sure she’ll come. We’re leaving for Como on Monday but I’m sure she’ll come. Don’t worry.’
‘Must see her,’ he repeated. Then all at once he smiled: ‘How is school going?’
‘It’s the holidays now. We broke up last week.’
‘Holidays? How time flies!’
‘Do you remember when you sang those Lieder for me? At school? In the car? You’ve never sung them for me again.’
‘Never sung them again.’ He repeated it. Then he fixed me with those raw eyes. ‘What is the point?’ he asked.
‘What is the point of what?’
‘Of the whole bloody business.’
Years later I was to understand the question; but now it merely added to my bewilderment and disquiet. ‘ How are you off for money? I met Mrs Pavlovsky in the hall and she said –’
‘Owe rent. Can’t pay it. What am I to do?’
‘I’ll speak to Ma.’
‘No, no! Don’t bother her.’
‘Yes! I’ll speak to her. Didn’t your pension arrive this month?’
‘Disappeared.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Money arrived. Registered post. As per usual. Then disappeared.’
Had Mrs Pavlovsky taken it? Had one of the other tenants taken it? Or had Dad put it away somewhere and then forgotten it? ‘But that’s impossible. How could that be? I’ll ask Mrs P. about it. She may know.’
‘No, no! Don’t ask her! Leave it!’
Eventually I went into the little kitchenette which he shared with two of the other tenants and made him some tea. Was the tea in the caddy his or did it belong to someone else? Oh, to hell with it! I’d use it, whoever was the owner. In a tin I found some crumbling shortbread biscuits. I’d give him some of those too.
Back in the room, I lifted the cup to his trembling lips, I inserted one piece of biscuit after another between his teeth. With difficulty he gulped; slowly he munched.
‘That’s better,’ he said. I really believed that it – and he – were better.
From then on, I occasionally managed to get a few words out of him. But for most of the time I was just gazing at him and he was just gazing out of the window. Eventually I looked at my watch. Oh, heavens! I had persuaded Ma to take me to Time and the Conways that evening, even though she disliked Priestley, whom she repeatedly described at ‘pretentious’ or ‘vulgar’. If I did not hurry, we should be late.
‘Dad, I’m afraid I must leave you now. But I’ll come by tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow,’ I amended, selfishly remembering that there were so many other things I wished to do before our departure for Como.
‘Don’t bother, don’t bother.’ His indifference was wounding. Then he went on: ‘But your mother. Tell her. I want to see her. Must see her. Why does she never come to see me? Why?’ So impassive before, he now spoke in anger. ‘Why, why, why?’
‘Ma, I really do think that you ought to go over.’
Ma, sprawled on the bed, continued to paint her toenails.
‘Ma!’
‘I heard you. There’s no ought about it.’
‘He’s in a bad way. I’ve never seen him in a worse.’
‘Then you’re lucky. Pity is like money in the bank. If one keeps drawing on it, there’s eventually none left. I’m afraid that’s my situation now.’
‘It would mean so much to him to have a visit from you.’
‘Have you any idea, any idea at all, of how much I have to do before we leave? I simply cannot, cannot, spare the time. I’d like to,
but that’s the truth, I’m afraid.’
I sat glumly in the chair by her bed. Then I ventured: ‘Well, if it’s absolutely impossible for you to go there, do you think you could let me have some money to take him?’
‘Money!’ Brush in hand, she glared up at me. ‘Are you crazy? Have you any idea of the money I’ve spent on him over all these years? Thousands, literally thousands!’
‘But surely now that Aunt Bertha …’
‘Don’t please get it into your head that Aunt Bertha left me a fortune. She left me this house, she left me what’s in it. But most of her money went to animals. You didn’t get a penny and the pennies that came to me can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand.’ She stared at me, brows knitted, in growing exasperation. ‘You’re just like your father. You have absolutely no sense of money at all. I don’t know where you think it comes from. Your school fees are huge. To take you and your grubby little friend to Como is going to cost me a fortune. And Tim never pays his way, you know that. No, I’m sorry. Your father has his pension and he’ll just have to learn to manage on that. What does he do with it, for God’s sake?’
I had no answer to that question. I got up and wandered over to the window.
‘Tim has arrived,’ I said.
The new MG sports car, which I was convinced Ma must have given to him, was drawing up to the kerb.
‘Oh, lord! Now you’ve made me late! We’ll never get to the theatre on time.’
Chapter Eighteen
The next day I had decided what to do. Dad must have that money, and I must get it for him in the only way of which I could think.
At the back of a rosewood display cabinet in the drawing-room was a little gold French vinaigrette, with an Italian mosaic cover, probably Roman, of a spaniel. Aunt Bertha had once got it out and showed it to me, after I had bought a far less elegant and valuable one in nearby Church Street with money from a birthday. ‘I bought it for the spaniel,’ she told me. ‘Isn’t he a darling? I once had a spaniel exactly like that.’